Radioactive dating online activity

Let's find out more about these geological dating methods in order to understand how Paul the Paleontologist can be so sure about the age of his dinosaur fossils.The release of radiation by unstable nuclei is called radioactive decay.This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Collection Resources in this top level collection a) must have scored Exemplary or Very Good in all five review categories, and must also rate as “Exemplary” in at least three of the five categories.If you point a Geiger counter at a radioactive substance for a period of time, you'll notice that the reading on the meter decreases as you watch. The radioactivity from some substances dies away very fast - perhaps in a few microseconds.This lesson introduces absolute dating and a few ways in which scientists accomplish it.

The salts of caesium are also soluble in water, and this complicates the safe handling of caesium. Test explosions "Simon" and "Harry" were both from Operation Upshot–Knothole in 1953, while the test explosions "George" and "How" were from Operation Tumbler–Snapper in 1952 Caesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Chernobyl disaster and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

This is called the half life of radioactive material or radioisotope.

Half life can be defined as the time taken for the number of nuclei in a radioactive material to halve.

Basic understanding of how radiometric dating works is useful.

This lesson is highly simplified, and the powerpoint describes everything the student will need to know for the activity.